Jayn_Newell

Jayn_Newell t1_jeb8n4a wrote

“Sorry, kid, there’s monsters roaming around out there. You should stay here in town where it’s safe.”

Alvin thanked the town guard for his service and went to roam the town some more. It was a pretty small town, just a couple shops, an inn, a church with six pews, and a few houses. And a well. Alvin looked down the well. There didn’t seem to be much water in it.

There were a couple kids chasing each other in circles around the well. He took a moment to talk to them.

“Mommy says I need to stay in town because there’s scary monsters out there. But I’m not scared of any stinky monsters!”

“They say there’s a dragon hiding in the hollow east of town. He sounds scary.”

Alvin let them get back to playing. There was another girl standing nearby, so he went to see what she had to say.

“My friend Tom went to explore the hollow east of town and he hasn’t come back yet. Will you go look for him?”

“No.”

He went back to exploring the town. The shop didn’t have much, but he picked up a few healing herbs, those were always good to have around. He tried to leave town but the guard stopped him again. After some more wandering he found himself talking to the young girl again.

“Will you go look for him?”

“No.”

There was a man wearing a cloak sitting in one of the rooms of the inn.

“Hey, you want to buy something awesome? It’ll only run you 300 gold pieces.”

“Okay, okay, 200.”

“Wow, you done a hard bargain, how does 100 sound?”

“Geez, you’re quite the cheapskate. 50 gold pieces and that’s my final offer.”

Alvin paid the 50 gold and took the sword. It was a pretty nice sword, and cheaper than the store had been selling it for.

By this point he’d talked to everyone town at least twice and there wasn’t anything else left to do. So with a sigh he went back to the little girl.

“Will you go look for him?”

“Yes.”

On his way out of town the guard gave him a wave. “Be careful out there. The store has plenty of herbs if you need!”

He hasn’t made it very far outside of town when he heard a voice calling him.

”Alvin, it’s supper time!”

”Just a minute Mom!”

He raced back to the church in town, saved his game and logged out. The hollow would have to wait—he could smell tacos.

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Jayn_Newell t1_je2mgga wrote

Which one “feels” right. As a girl in online gaming spaces ~2006 I got misgendered a lot and it never failed to bother me, because it was wrong. For most of us our gender identity happens to match the psychical body we have, so it’s not usually a problem. For some people it doesn’t, and so it feels wrong to them to be referred to as that gender. (There’s also some people who don’t seem to have any strong gender identity at all, so they generally just go with what society says they are).

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